Does anyone know a baby who co-sleeps or bedshares who is a good sleeper?

01-27-2009, 08:31 PM

I keep running into people who are always blaming co-sleeping, mainly bed-sharing to babies not sleeping well at night.. I have to say certainly from my experience and it seems from other's experience here it does not seem like most babies who do bed-share sleep particularly well. I understand all the advantages of bed-sharing and extended breastfeeding. I also understand baby sleep cycles,etc.. I guess I am just looking for evidence to the contrary. Does anyone have any anecdotes?

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Yes, my first son slept deep and well and a lot at night starting pretty early. It is his personality I believe. My second son has a different personality!

We could redefine it to

a child who's nighttime needs enable the parents to get frequent uninterrupted sleep

I have breastfed and co-slept with both boys but have responded to each of their needs accordingly. I didn't force the standards developed by his older brother on the younger because they simply would not work! ...and this is true of any child!

I may get less sleep with the new baby but I do feel that attending to his nighttime needs is worth the price.

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I think that children who sleep separate from the parents still wake up at night. They've just had to learn that they soothe themselves back to sleep. I know that it's rare for ME to sleep for 8 or 9 hours without waking up at least once, sometimes more than that. It's human nature. I think it's important to be close to our children to meet their needs during the night. I'd rather my child disturb my sleep, searching for my breast to nurse and soothe himself back to sleep than imagine him lying in his crib, holding a lovey and sucking on his pacifer. Co-sleeping also offers most parents the opportunity to go right back to sleep, since we don't (usually) have to get out of bed to tend to our children's needs.

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Hmm.. well I guess good sleeper would be a baby who sleeps about 4-5 hours at a time... Yes my DD is a bad sleeper.. she still wakes up every 1 or 2 at night to nurse.. we have tried night weaning and it did not go very well... I think she has pain from teething pretty often and that contributes (motrin or tylenol does not seem to do much)..so I have given up because I feel like if the nursing help to settle her back down then I will continue to do it..

I am sure you are right that babies who sleep alone still wake up just don't wake up their parents... I guess people have a different perspective and think that children sleep through the night f they don't wake their parents up...

It's good to know that some bed-sharing babies are capable of sleeping well..

My baby is a "good sleeper". He started STTN at 2 months old and then at about 4 months old he started waking up once or twice a night which consisted of him whimpering, I half way wake up, give him a breast and we're both asleep again in a couple of minutes. He's 10 months old now and will usually wake up like this once, but sometimes he doesn't wake up at all and will sleep for about 8 hours. I feel very lucky because I think it is his personality, I know it isn't anything that I've done to make him sleep so well.

Amy

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my kids are such 'good' sleepers that i often check to see if theyre breathing.
theyve been like that forever it seems.
its just in thier genes i guess...
but even then im still sleep deprived because theyre only like that when they do sleep. they have evolved to not need sleep or something. lol

i think having a baby period is the reason people are getting such poor sleep

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Z will have one 4 hour stretch followed by 3 hr stretches at night. Since she only catnaps during the day (5-20 min). I don't really count her waking up at night as really being awake. Her eyes are usually closed and she never really wakes up. I just latch her on and we both go back to sleep.

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I could not honestly tell you how many times my daughter wakes up during the night... right now it could be 5 or could be 10 times, it just depend on so many factors... , develp stage, did she eat well, is she thirsty, is it too cold, too hot? Am I close enough, too close? It depends on the day.... in my opinion she is a good sleeper = she sleeps and is happy... and I am also VERY happy she is right by my side... it is great and waking up is even better!!

As someone else said, I wake up myself about 20 zillion times during the night even to go to the bathroon or eat something, always have, always will... in my opinion I am a GREAT sleeper not to say I am not exhausted... I find that you get used to being exhausted... with time and acceptance... it is what is... so I have to agree that it is probably a personality thing all the waking up....

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My son slept by himself in a crib or bassinet since birth and slept through the night (8 hours and up) since about 2 months (yes I am lucky). At about 11 months he started having major issues taking a couple hours to fall asleep at night and waking up frequently. I decided to start co-sleeping and it was the best decision ever. He now takes a very minimum amount of time to fall asleep. He used to be rocked to sleep but now I just lay in bed with him and he falls asleep on his own. He doesn't wake up as often in the night, and if he does I can soothe him back to sleep very quickly. He's learned to find me and cuddle when he needs it. Co-sleeping is the best deicision I have made in a while. I believe my son's sleeping has greatly improved since we started.

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My 10mo son still wakes 4-5 times per night no matter WHAT we do! It's hard to shake the feeling that I must be doing something wrong, or that perhaps I'm doing a disservice to my son by not forcing him to find ways to self-soothe (which he CAN do, but doesn't always).

Reading this thread is good for morale- by nature, some babies are "easy" sleepers and some are "difficult" sleepers.

Whew.

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Update....my 'bad' sleeper second child is now almost 16 mo and sleeps all through the night.. alone on his part of the bed for the first few hours and then the rest snuggled up next to me. He nurses a lot in the morning 6am-7am but he went to bed at 8...so not too shabby huh?

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My son slept by himself in a crib or bassinet since birth and slept through the night (8 hours and up) since about 2 months (yes I am lucky). At about 11 months he started having major issues taking a couple hours to fall asleep at night and waking up frequently. I decided to start co-sleeping and it was the best decision ever. He now takes a very minimum amount of time to fall asleep. He used to be rocked to sleep but now I just lay in bed with him and he falls asleep on his own. He doesn't wake up as often in the night, and if he does I can soothe him back to sleep very quickly. He's learned to find me and cuddle when he needs it. Co-sleeping is the best deicision I have made in a while. I believe my son's sleeping has greatly improved since we started.

We started co-sleeping at just after 18 months! Sam was a miserable sleeper until then - I second! Co-sleeping has saved my sanity! He still wakes up alot (he'll be 3 next week) but I don't have to do much besides put my hand on him and we both go right back to sleep. We also used to rock, but now we just lay down together.
jamie

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I'd say my daughter is a fairly good sleeper now. I think it's just the developmental stage she's at but she'll sleep through the night most nights provided we keep somewhat to our routine. She was not always like that though. She was always a rotten sleeper from day one but at least in our case I really think that cosleeping was necessary for our family. I'm very certain Cadence would still have woken just as often, had she been in a crib, but I would have had to get up each time and nurse her to get her back to sleep. This way I just latched her on and dosed back off. Yes, I was sleep deprived for a year, but I think it would have been even worse if she were not in bed with us. I get up at 5:00 am after a somewhat late bedtime so we did whatever worked for us no matter what people said. She weaned easily at 17 months and at 22 months is still cosleeping nicely. I've read that kids generally are ready to leave their parents' bed by age 2-3. Any thoughts? I really don't think it would go over well now but could definitely see advantages to having a toddler free bed!